The invention relates to a buckle for receiving and locking an insertable tongue of a safety belt, for example in a motor vehicle.
It has been proposed to provide a safety belt buckle having a housing and, arranged therein, an insertion path for the insertable tongue, said path containing a spring-loaded ejector, and having a locking element which is pivotably mounted in the buckle and, in the locked position, engages in a recess of the tongue and is secured in the locked position by means of a securing member movably mounted in the buckle, and for releasing the locking element, having a sliding knob which is guided in the housing transversely with respect to the plane of movement of the locking element which, to protect it from shock, cooperates with a counterweight guided in the housing.
A belt buckle of this kind is described in DE-OS 35 33 684 Krutzfeldt et al dated Feb. 26, 1987 and belonging to the assignee of the present invention; in an embodiment by way of example shown therein, the counterweight is separately arranged and mounted on bearings in the buckle housing and is connected by a special lever to the sliding knob and the securing member for the locking element, so that, disadvantageously, there is only an indirect cooperation of the counterweight with the sliding knob on the one hand and the securing member on the other hand. Apart from the complicated buckle structure which can be regarded as a further disadvantage, the masses which are to be moved or which are to be secured against movement in the event of forces of acceleration acting on the buckle are comparatively great, since a number of buckle components are involved in the operational coupling of the sliding knob, securing member and counterweight.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to improve the belt buckle of the aforementioned general type in such a way that the structure of the buckle is simplified with regard to the means for protecting it from shock, and the mass of the components that cooperate during acceleration is reduced.